Józef Wybicki

Józef Wybicki (1747-1822) was a Polish jurist, poet, soldier and politician who lived through the transition from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to a Poland divided among foreign powers. He is remembered above all for the Dąbrowski Mazurka, now the national anthem of Poland.

Born in Będomin, in the Pomerania region, he came from a Pomeranian noble family. He studied at a Jesuit school and in 1767 was elected a deputy to the Repnin Sejm, on the eve of the First Partition of Poland. He soon joined the Confederation of Bar, which opposed Russian influence, and worked as an adviser and diplomat. After its failure he spent some time in the Netherlands, where he studied law at Leiden University.

Back in Poland, he took part in the Commission of National Education and was close to the Patriotic Party during the Great Sejm, although he spent much of those years at his estate, writing and staging operas. After the Kościuszko Uprising he moved to France. Together with his friend Jan Henryk Dąbrowski he helped organise the Polish Legions in Italy, which served under Napoleon Bonaparte.

His writings include political poems, plays and treatises calling for reform in Poland and greater rights for the peasantry. After the Duchy of Warsaw was created in 1807 he held posts in its Department of Justice and kept serving the state after Napoleon's fall. In 1817 he became president of the Supreme Court of Congress Poland. He died in March 1822 at Manieczki, then part of the Grand Duchy of Posen in Prussian territory.

His legacy rests on the mazurka he wrote in Reggio Emilia in 1797 in honour of Dąbrowski. It was treated as an unofficial anthem from the November Uprising of 1831, and in 1927 the Sejm formally adopted it as the national anthem.